


Goodbye

by iamtheladyfreak (dragonet)



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Death, Gen, Grief, R is a little older than E, hellish angst, student!e, traveller!R
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-02
Updated: 2014-09-02
Packaged: 2018-02-15 22:08:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2245065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonet/pseuds/iamtheladyfreak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I love you. Goodbye.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Goodbye

**Author's Note:**

> AN: I DO NOT KNOW WHERE THIS CAME FROM IT LITERALLY SPRANG OUT OF MY HEAD BECAUSE I WAS LISTENING TO HELLISH INDIE MUSIC I'M SORRY PLEASE FORGIVE ME

“Grantaire?” Enjolras asks, taken aback. It’s very late on a weekday and he’s only back at the Musain because he left his psychology textbook upstairs after the meeting. He didn’t expect anyone to be here.

“Oh,” Grantaire sighs, lowering his bottle. The owners allow him to stay up here sometimes, Enjolras knows, when he can’t afford to live anywhere else. “It’s you. I thought you might be Joly again.”

“Were you expecting Joly?” he asks, levering himself through the narrow door and stooping to pick up his textbook from under the table.

“No, he’s just left,” Grantaire says. He hasn’t looked Enjolras in the eye yet.

“Are you living here at the moment?” Enjolras asks next, looking around. Grantaire’s enormous knapsack leans against one wall and the man himself is huddled under a bright blanket. Enjolras recognises it; it’s Grantaire’s go-to, it’s been present at countless protests, in numerous overnight cells, wrapped around people in shock or caught in the rain, a promise of Grantaire’s hard won love in a lumpy weave of off-white, orange, red and green.

“At the moment,” Grantaire laughs bitterly and takes another drink. The familiar movement of his throat makes desperation and resentment crawl up Enjolras’s spine and he forces himself to look away. He should leave, but the thought of leaving Grantaire alone here is strangely painful.

“Where did you get that blanket?” Enjolras enquires to take his mind off the unpleasant emotions. Grantaire swallows his mouthful, faintly surprised.

“Peru,” he answers. “I went there when I was seventeen, spent a year and a half milking goats on a godforsaken mountainside.”

“Did you enjoy it?” Enjolras wonders.

“Yeah,” he admits softly. “Yeah, it was great.” He catches Enjolras’s eye briefly.

To his intense astonishment, Enjolras finds himself drawing out a chair and sitting at the table.

“Tell me about it,” he says quietly. Grantaire’s grey eyes catch his again but this time Enjolras looks away.

They sit all night and Grantaire tells stories of places Enjolras has never been. He feels the harsh exposure of the mountain sunlight in Peru as though he was there, smells spices and donkey dung and flowers in Marrakesh, sees the vivid colours and deep poverty of Bolivia, hears birds calling and the wind rushing through the lonely expanse of the Siberian tundra. At some point he falls half-asleep, lulled by Grantaire’s voice, and feels the comforting warmth of the Peruvian blanket against his face. Grantaire’s breath is warm with rum as he exhales into Enjolras’s hair.

“You’re so young,” he sighs and it strikes Enjolras as he passes into the deepest sleep he’s had for years that Grantaire might be crying.

 

_Enjolras,_

_I love you._

_This is a shitty way to tell you, I guess. I’m sorry I didn’t have enough courage – before. Combeferre assures me you have no idea, but I think you probably know deep down, always have._

_See, you’re the other half of me, but I don’t think I’m the other half of you. You’re looking for someone and maybe I could’ve been it, if I’d lived a bit longer – but I didn’t and I wasn’t. So I wish you luck, I hope you find your soulmate and when you do I hope they love you as much I loved you._

_There’s no time to tell you everything I want to. I want to fall asleep with you and wake up with you and do every other clichéd lovey-dovey thing in the world with you, every day until the end of the world._

_Anyway. I’m sorry. I love you, always and forever._

_Goodbye_

_R xx_

Combeferre goes in to check on Enjolras after the funeral and finds him deeply asleep in the enormous hotel bed, one hand curled up by his nose, balled around the letter damp with tears.


End file.
